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Here comes Rachel Alexandra

We’re taking a break from hard news this week to focus on what’s just simply a good story—one that pairs well with one of the best-read New York Times articles of the week, about women bullying women in the workplace. Except this story has a better outcome.

 

When the gates burst open at the Preakness Stakes this Saturday in Baltimore, Maryland, one of the 13 horses—actually the one on the outside who drew the 13^th spot from the rail, will look a lot like the rest of the horses: well trained, fast as lightning, a winning record under the saddle.

 

Except that she’s a girl.

 

Here comes Rachel Alexandra

If you haven’t yet heard the name Rachel Alexandra, a 3-year-old filly, you may not be able to forget it after Saturday’s 135^th run of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown. This “super filly,” as some have called her, now is the favored horse in the race, with 8-5 odds. Owners of other horses that have run against her talk of “chasing” her down the track. She’s good.

 

She didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby a couple weeks ago but she did run the night before in the traditional girl’s race, the Kentucky Oaks. She tore up the field and won by more than 20 lengths. Watch the race here.

 

The drama

Since she won the Oaks, she’s been the center of a lot of drama. Her new owner within the last two weeks, Jess Jackson of Kendall-Jackson wines, decided he wanted to run her in the Preakness. Horses who are nominated before the Triple Crown challenge begins are given favored status as entrants, so Jackson paid a $100,000 supplement to have her entered.

 

But she still almost didn’t make it in the race. For one, the jockey who rode her to victory in the Oaks on May 1 then went on to win the Kentucky Derby the next day on Mine that Bird, a horse that went from last to first to win the race and has been the focus of much attention since his incredible win.

 

That jockey—Calvin Borel—decided if Rachel Alexandra ran the Preakness, he’d ride her. Of course Mine that Bird’s owners want Borel on their horse. So they nominated another horse to the lineup, and so did another owner, hoping to keep her out.

 

But then enter the two-legged lady. Horse ownerMarylou Whitney, along with her husband, said, “ladies first,” saying they would pull their horse Luv Guv if it meant Rachel Alexandra wouldn’t run. The other owners backed down, making room for the girl.

 

The big picture

The last time a girl ran the Preakness was 10 years ago, and she didn’t finish. Filly Rags to Riches won the Belmont, the last of the Triple Crown races, two years ago. But when it comes to the Triple Crown, it’s truly a boy’s sport. Since 1867, only 10 fillies have ever won one of the races, and none have won all three. In the same week that all this drama unfolded, the New York Times had a top-read story called “Backlash: Women Bullying Women,” which discussed how women’s progress in the workplace is often, strangely enough, impeded by other women. We thought it only fitting this week to show an example of female chivalry, in the story of Marylou Whitney and Rachel Alexandra. In the end, it took a girl to let a girl in.

A bad week for print

While we are curious about what you’re reading these days, we’re particularly curious about how you’re reading. Online? In print? On the Kindle?

 

It’s a question that percolated this week as local newspapers came under pressure and Amazon released the latest version of its digital e-reader, the Kindle.

 

A rough week for newspapers

The demise of newspapers has been a sad reality for some time, but the recession seems to have tipped some that were holding on over the edge.

 

Declining print readership and falling revenues forced Denver's Rocky Mountain News to publish its last paper on Friday, caused the San Francisco Chronicle to say it may fold, and put the Philadelphia Inquirer into bankruptcy. All this seemed to drive home the obvious point that more people consume news online: readership on news sites grew 12% last year.

 

A rough week for books

The release of Amazon's Kindle 2 this week seemed to stir up another round of questions and commentary about the future of the book. There are now a number of e-readers on the market, and that combined with competition from resellers offering better deals and audible books available for download on iPods and computers, the publishing world is certainly suffering. 

Hard-cover adult book sales fell 13% last year, and Borders is struggling to save its business—the company’s stock has fallen from $8 a share in September to 58 cents. Independent book stores are closing across the country.

Meanwhile Amazon’s Kindle sold out before the holidays and there was a waiting list for the new version (post Oprah mention). Kindle 2 costs $359 and lets you wirelessly download books and newspapers on the 10.2 ounce digital e-reader, which the company says is lighter than most paperbacks.

 

Clearly the publishing world is concerned. The Authors Guild took Amazon to task this week over one of the new Kindle features, a capability called “read-to-me” that enables the device to read a book to you out loud, albeit in the voice of a computer. The guild says it gets royalties for books on tape but not from “read-to-me,” adding to the publishing world's despair. 

 

The big picture

About 32 million Americans are considered illiterate according to a recent study, so maybe we should focus less on new media killing old media and just be glad that people are reading and facilitate ways that encourage more of it. And while it's sad to lose businesses that employ a lot of people, there's clearly a shift taking place in information consumption—one that isn't over—and one that requires companies to adapt their business models, quickly. Speaking of which, in an effort to improve our model we'd like to hear from you. Will you take our short survey and help us figure out how to better serve your information needs? Thank you!

Water-lily pond

On Tuesday at a Christie’s auction in London, “Le Bassin aux Nymphéas,” a rarely seen painting of Claude Monet’s beloved water lilies sold for a record $80.4 million, smashing the painter’s own record and proving to the world that the art market, unlike the stock market, is alive and well.
Bidding was described by news outlets as “intense” and “standing room only,” going to “a blond woman in the front row,” who represented an anonymous buyer.

The painting, which was expected to collect about $50 million, last sold at auction in 1971 for $320,000 and remained in private hands since then. Christie’s called the piece “one of the great rarities of Impressionist and Modern art,” and highlighted that it was “signed, dated and sold” by Monet—apparently another rarity. The work is part of a series of four from 1919.

All about water lilies
In the early 1830s, Monet moved to Giverny, northeast of Paris. There he created magnificent gardens and built the water-lily pond, the almost exclusive subject (250) of his later works. Lilies were just one of his many series—the Rouen Cathedral, haystacks, Waterloo Bridge—where he depicted the same subject in different light, time and season.

More about Monet (1840-1926)
Monet began his career drawing caricatures as a teenager in Le Havre, France. Under the mentorship of Eugene Boudin, a painter of landscapes, Monet developed a predilection for painting out of doors. During his life he collaborated with other well known Impressionists such as Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley.

His work, and the Impressionist movement he pushed forward, centered on the use of spontaneous, staccato brushwork to capture light and form within natural scenes. Interestingly, the term Impressionism stems from a work by Monet, "Impression: Sunrise," which a critic deemed an "impression," or unfinished.

In his later years, Monet suffered from cataracts which limited his ability to distinguish colors and most likely contributed to the dark and red browns used in "The Japanese Bridge" he painted at Giverny in the early 1920's. 

The big picture
The art market of late has been on fire, and Tuesday’s auction—combined with a week of London are auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s—could reap $1 billion. Despite sentiment that the dismal stock market and other economic woes could dent art prices, new wealth from places like Russia is helping buoy the market. And that sounds like another good Diva topic for another week!

What do women want?

Hillary Clinton's run for the White House may have folded this week, but she certainly succeeded in advancing the cause of women as much as any politician in U.S. history. And while we're excited for the upcoming race between Barack Obama and John McCain, we'll never forget the image of a strong woman on the campaign trail. We hope to see another viable female candidate in every presidential election to come.

 

The question is, are the rest of us up to the challenge? Earlier this week The New York Times media columninst David Carr penned an interesting piece musing about the success of the "Sex and the City" movie (it took in about $55 million in its first weekend at the box office) and the rise of female-targeted web sites. The Times headlined his column aptly, "Slumber Parties Go Digital."

 

As my sister said, Carr's argument is not rocket science: Coverage of celebrity pregnancies, fashion, weddings and shoes is as popular online as it is in the women's magazines that many of us have a love-hate relationship with. His final analysis: The revolution for women on the Web so far is "shallow, but one that carries deep implications."

 

What do women readers want?

A few months ago, while lunching with a successful startup CEO, I asked for ideas on how to get better distribution for our site and The WeeklyDIVA, which, as you know, attempts to help busy women stay on top of the news. He said, "Don't women want horoscopes?"

Recently I asked the CEO of a growing and popular women-focused Web site why all the topics focused on "living" and "beauty." Where's the hard news, I asked? “It's an interesting question,” he said—it has to be filtered for the one thing women don’t have: time.

 

Then, just in the last week, I expressed to a friend of mine, another startup CEO on this recipient list, that we were trying to figure out how to grow our subscriber list. He says I’m unique, and not everyone shares my interests or passions for the news, which may make it difficult.

 

Really? Can it be that all those women out there that I know with one, two and three degrees don't care about the news and the lives that are impacted by events in their communities or in places far away? Is it really all just about cosmopolitans and lipstick for women?

 

Is there a place for content like The WeeklyDIVA?

At the WeeklyDIVA, we think it's about lipstick, cosmos—and using our brains. It's about feeling connected to the news, despite being so wrapped up in a new product launch, or so busy wiping baby food off the floor, that we didn't have time to read headlines about the housing market's collapse or why the lawyers in Pakistan were being attacked, and what that means for our lives.

 

In the end we know there is a place for The WeeklyDIVA in the sphere of women because we know you read it and we know you refer it to your friends. Naturally, as we grow we need resources. But you are our main resource—you and the other women out there who may be inaccurately categorized as just “horoscope" readers. This revolution on the Web for women does not have to be shallow. But the only way it won’t be is if we don’t let it be. 

Tell us what YOU think: What do women want? And be sure to read David Carr's column.

Best,

Stacey

editor, The WeeklyDIVA

We'll be back with news next week. We just couldn't let this one go!

I'd rather be watching American Idol

After the writer’s strike and subsequent hangover that left TV show dark for months, the networks are welcoming back prime-time programs—and the viewers.

Sixteen million people caught ABC’s “Desperate Housewives”on April 20, and over 23 million viewers tuned in “American Idol” last Tuesday, and then again on Wednesday.
See the latest Nielsen data.

Meanwhile, news programs are bleeding viewers
In contrast, network nightly news programs average seven million viewers each night, or over 20 million combined. Their collective audience has dropped about one million a year over the last 25 years, and the median aged viewer is 61 years old.

The “CBS Evening News” is taking the most heat. Reports say the highly scrutinized Katie Couric is considering an early exit from her $75 million, five-year contract. CBS’s decade-long third place spot behind NBC and ABC has fallen further behind of late. Last week it tallied its worst ratings in the program’s history.
See a synopsis of the state of network news from Pew Research.

Test your news IQ
Just 24% of people who took a news quiz from Pew Research could name the Senate Majority Leader. The average person scored 50% and women scored 39% to men’s 56%. Take the Pew News IQ quiz here. If you’ve been keeping up with the WeeklyDIVA, we expect perfect scores!

On that note, here’s a quick news round-up from the week
- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized former President Jimmy Carter for trying to broker peace in Israel, saying the U.S. counseled him not to meet with Hamas, the militant group calling for the destruction of Israel. Carter says not so, the government didn’t say a word to him. (See our primer on Hamas and Fatah.)

- Hillary Clinton trounced Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary, 55% to 45%. She still trails him in the delegate count by about 150.  

- Costco and Sam’s Club are rationing rice sales amid worldwide cut backs on rice exports. Rice prices have tripled since January.

The big picture
Almost 70 million people visited news sites in the first quarter of this year, up 12% from the same time last year. Interestingly, the Pennsylvania Primary debate and “60 Minutes” were among the top-20 viewed shows last week, suggesting perhaps that people are still interested in news and smart programming on television, just maybe not in the time slot or format it’s delivered in. A recent report says half of Americans find traditional journalism “out of touch.”

Not your mother's world

"Eddie says after the baby comes, I can quit one of my night jobs."
-         National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
 
Night job or day, more women are returning to work after having a baby than in the 1960s, and they're working up until practically the last minute. A sign of the times? A roundup of new Census Bureau data making headlines recently, offering a glimpse into the American family and work culture—with a focus on women.
 
Who knew? March is Women's History Month
In honor of a full month to celebrate women, the Census released a host of data about women:1) 6.5 million businesses are women-owned, about 28% of all non-farm businesses.
2) A higher percentage of women than men achieve bachelor's degrees or higher (33% v 26%), and more graduate from high school.

3) At $32,649, the median salary for women is $10,000 less than that of men.

4) Women living in the District of Columbia make 98 cents to every dollar made by men—the closest parity in the country.
Read the full release.

The pregnancy shift
Later, faster, longer… these are the key words to remember when it comes to women and pregnancy and work. Not only are more women (80% vs 14% in 1960) working into their last month of pregnancy, the number of women having their first baby after age 30 has spiked from 4% in 1970 to 24% today. Just over half of new moms returned to work six months after having the baby, up from 14% four decades ago. Ironically, the number of stay-at-home moms increased by one million between 1996 and 2006.
Read the full release.

Women are having fewer children
The average number of children born to women between the ages of 40 and 44 dropped from 3.1 in 1976 to 1.9 in 2004. And, fewer women in this group had children at all, 81% down from 90%.

The big picture
Of course there have been major shifts in the acceptance of women in the workplace since the 60s, and the shift to later pregnancies probably reflects this to a certain degree. Why they are returning to work faster is potentially a reality of the times—the average college education costs $20,000 a year. One income often won't cut it. What hasn't changed is women's percentage of earnings to men's—it's still 77 cents on the dollar. Depending on the outcome of the remaining primaries, it could be anyone's guess whether having a female president might have helped changed that.

A feast for Super Tuesday

Stuffed peppers...

These are so easy and so good!

Ingredients:
4-6 green peppers
1 pound ground turkey (or beef)
1 chopped onion
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 12 ounce can of tomato sauce
a little water
1/2 cup cooked rice
1 egg

Mix everything together, reserving about 1/4 of the tomato sauce for later. Hollow out the green peppers -- we simply slice off the tops to create a nice opening, then remove the core and seeds, etc. Scoop the meat mixture into the peppers--be generous: fill them up to the top--and place them in a pyrex dish that's big enough to hold them all.

Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Pull them out after 40 minutes and top with the remaining tomato sauce. Then put back in for another five to 10 minutes (until the sauce has a little time to cook).

Serve with a salad and easy peasey frozen corn. Yum. Honestly, this dinner might cost you $15 to serve four or more people. Love that!

Have a recipe you want to share? We'll tack it on to an upcoming WeeklyDIVA. info@discussiondivas.com

Fighting the holiday blues

Home for the holidays… a yearly ritual that brings comfort and some predictability to the chaos of the holiday season. No matter how young or old, many of us can count on spending the holidays with our families.

But while this may bring visions of carols and cocoa, reality can often be far from dreamy—as in, why is mom treating you like you’re 16 years old again?

Old family roles die hard

Even if you live thousands of miles away from mom and dad, brother and sister, when you’re home, everyone plays a role.

Think of your family like a cast of characters in a play. Each person is assigned a particular part to play, perhaps the hero, the scapegoat, or the caretaker, and each person assumes that identity and the subsequent behaviors of their assigned role—essentially forever.   

If you know your role and everyone else’s, why can the holidays get messy?

Challenges arise when the cast of characters temporarily return for another act in the play, like the holidays. Everyone assumes you’re playing the same role when actually you’ve changed and don’t want that role anymore. It leads to a host of feelings:

• Hey Mom, I am different now! You’ve grown and changed but the family still treats you like the family clown. You think, does my family really know me?
• Oops, I did it again. It’s easy to jump back into old behaviors you thought you’d abandoned. Perhaps you were cast as the caretaker but realized the role was enabling poor behavior in family members. You feel frustrated.
• Changing of the guard.  There’s a new character in the play—a partner or baby—and roles have been realigned.   You might confused and isolated. 

So, how to deal?
With the limited time frame of the holidays, it’s probably best to do nothing major. After all, family systems and roles are so entrenched, cemented over decades, that unless you are planning on making the holidays an extended therapy session, you would be wise to just bring awareness to the situation. 

By simply reminding yourself of the dynamics and the feelings they may bring, you set reasonable expectations for what things will be like. That doesn’t mean to ignore what might be uncomfortable family role dynamics, but it is likely that confrontations during the holidays will not produce change. Instead try to focus on what is within your control. At the end of the day, that’s just you!

-- by Brittany Olsen, a San Francisco-based psychotherapist. Have a question for Brittany? Post them annonymously.

Never walk out the door with a Rudolf sweater!

You have worked hard all year, especially this holiday season...you’ve bought all the cards, gifts, even remembered the stamps…baked cookies, pies…well, now it's your time to SHINE.

Here are some tips for how to set yourself apart this holiday season without breaking the bank:

Black Paired with Pops of Color
Holiday dressing does not mean wearing red and green only. Try black with a pop of color, such as red or a dark emerald green. Or go for black with a pop of deep purple, fuchsia, bright blue, winter white, or navy (yes! navy looks very sophisticated when paired with black).

Shine and Texture
Don’t be afraid to play with shine and texture. Even if you would never wear sequins, how about a wide patent leather belt, shoes or clutch? This is the time of year to bring out your velvet and don't forget the fishnet stockings!

When you want to go all out for a fun event, try something sparkly like the Tory Burch Mesh Sequins Dress. It’s perfect for a black-tie cocktail party, wedding or New Year’s Eve dress.

If you’d like a little shine, but don't want to go all out, pick one piece that can be worn with something else. A sequin tank from J Crew paired with black pants and a jacket is perfect for the office party. Over the weekend, wear it with your skinny or wide leg jeans out to dinner.

Dresses, dresses, dresses
The item of the season is definitely the dress. Do you remember the last time you wore a dress? Me neither! Well, it's time again!

Sweater dresses are hot this winter and easy to wear. This sequined jersey tunic dress is a great look that can be worn a few different ways. Here it is paired with black leggings and flats, but you can also wear it with boots or even over skinny jeans.

This satin shift dress can also take you many places. I love the color. For the West Coast ladies wear it as it is, for the East Coast (where we just got our first snow fall) pair it back to black leggings and to complete the look, add a wide black belt!

Or if you’d prefer to invest in a dress that can work all year round, you can't go wrong with something like the Tier-Bottom Organza Dress from Diane von Furstenberg (always worth the investment!) and the Calista Rope Dress with beautiful back detail from Elie Tahari.

Budget conscious
If you have already blown your budget on holiday gifts and just need a fashion "update," accessories are a perfect way to take a black suit, dress or sweater and make it holiday perfect. Club Monaco has some great pieces like clutches, beaded belts, long cashmere gloves, and chunky necklaces and bracelets (unfortunately you will have to go into the store to see). Stores like J Crew and Banana Republic have great cashmere accessories that won't break the bank. If you are trendy and want to be the first in the office to wear colored tights, American Apparel has a good selection.

In addition, stores have already started to mark things down. Don't be intimidated by walking into a high end store! You don't need to wait until after New Year's to get a good bargain.

And one last tip...never walk out of the house with a sweater that has Rudolph on it!

Erica is a NY-based contributor for DiscussionDIVAS and a full-time personal shopper for individuals like you. If you’re looking for additional tips or a complete overhaul, e-mail Erica at Erica.Maslow@gmail.com.